THE MAN WHO SCREAMS AT NIGHTFALL
The main avenue of the village Kitengo shimmered with thick waves of heat. My legs moved like iron logs as I trudged through the sand. People stopped whatever chore they were doing and crowded the edge of the road: a static parade of dusty faces staring at me as I passed. The barren flatness of an African savanna encircled me, galloping in all directions toward haze-filled horizons. Only a fat mango tree, rising like a sentinel at the edge of the village, broke up the monotony of my surroundings.
I had arrived only a few hours earlier; my home for the next year and a half. My assistant, a young man named Kunga, traveled with me on this exploratory walk. The smell of rotting fruit smothered my face as we stopped under the mango tree and found a middle-aged man sitting in a thin patch of shade. He was busy scraping rust of the battery coils of a flashlight. An old wooden toolbox lay next to him in the sand.
He looked up and winked at me. My feet burned to turn around -- back to the dark rooms of my mud house, far at the other end of the village. After all, I did have a lot unpacking to do. But my assistant pulled me forward and introduced me to Kachamba, explaining he was their resident repairman and cousin to the Chief of Kitengo.
I held out my hand, but Kachamba didn't move. He was bald with thick, gray mutton-chop sideburns that seemed stolen from a Victorian photograph. His clothing consisted of red cut-off shorts and no shirt or shoes and he buried his feet in the sand of the road creating two triangle-shaped mounds. His eyes narrowed and for a long time he didn't say anything. I squirmed, wiping sweat off my neck, and turned to Kunga for help. My assistant just shrugged his shoulders.
Finally, a relaxed smile crept across Kachamba's face. "Bring me something to fix," he said.
"I don't have anything that's broken," I said
"Everyone has something that is broken," he said, and winked at me again. I had the strange feeling we had met before. Probably just deja-vu. I told him I would look around, and if I found something, I'd certainly bring it to him.
Kunga and I continued on our way, following a steep path from the highlands of the village to the lush valley far below. A group of men wanted to set up a fish farm, so I spent the rest of the afternoon hiking thick forests trying to locate a creek or spring as a potential source of water -- my first day on the job.
After plucking myself from a life of new college graduate/ confused soul back in the States, I had spent three months training to, at age twenty-three, come live in this village in the middle of the Congo (where the nearest paved road or town with electricity was three hours away) and tell men twice my age how to improve their lives. Ridiculous. Though I had cruised through my training with high marks and higher words of praise, my confidence was still waiting for a plane ticket to come join me. Miscommunication and fear dripped from my tongue with each word I spoke and frozen confusion settled on those farmer's faces. My assistant shrugged his shoulders every time I looked to him for help.
Eventually dusk crawled across the valley, sucking the last drops of daylight from the sky. I pushed my legs as hard as I could up the forbidding hill leading back toward my house. Dark shelter and solitude called out for me. Let me float away. Far away...
I passed Kachamba; he was still sitting under the mango tree, humming while he fiddled with a radio, and winking and smiling at everyone who walked by.
****
Later that night, after finishing a supper of ground squash seeds cooked with hot pepper and oil, Kunga and I retired to the back yard of my house. The sting of the pepper still burned on my lips as we pulled up chairs and I cracked open a bottle of Johnnie Walker. The deep night sky seemed low enough to touch and a shooting star streaked above me as the whisky slid down my throat. A breeze moved through the palm and banana trees that lined my yard...
Loud, violent shouting ripped through the air.
Voices tripped upon each other fast and furious – like a group of people in a heated argument. I twisted around, trying to figure out where the sounds came from. "What's going on out there?"
Kunga took a sip from the bottle and said nothing. A scream followed; a sickening noise. The hair on my arms actually stood up.
"Kunga, what is going on?"
"It's Kachamba."
After a moment I placed the name. "The fix-it man? Is someone attacking him?"
"He's only attacking himself."
"Well...should we go over there? Make sure he's all right?"
"He's all right."
Another scream pierced the night, louder than the first.
"He doesn't sound all right." I jumped up. "I can't listen to this. Are you coming?"
Kunga groaned.
The voices varied in volume and frequency as we neared the edge of the village. A fire glowed up ahead of us, shadowing the mango tree in a thick silhouette. Kunga motioned for me to stay low, and I followed him along a wall of honeysuckle bushes bordering Kachamba's yard.
Kachamba was alone, running back and forth in front of the fire, swinging his arms wildly, as if fighting off something that was falling on him. He dropped to his knees and sprang off the ground. Next he danced, swaying and spinning his body so close to the fire he was in danger of falling in. All the while, he screamed and shouted in different voices and dialects, none of which I could understand.
"Who is he speaking to?" I whispered. "Is he drunk?"
Kunga shrugged his shoulders
"Kunga, what the hell is going on?"
Kunga sighed. "His wife left him a few years ago. Ran off with another man and took his children. Ever since he has not been right in the head."
"He seemed ok when I met him."
"He only does this at night. He was kicked out of all the other villages he lived in. He's here only because Kachamba's father once saved the life of the Chief's father...No. It was the Chief's mother who saved the life of Kachamba's sister... Or was it the other way around?... Anyway the Chief has no choice."
Spinning, swirling, shouting, screaming; Kachamba's features were knotted and twisted, like a melted carnival mask. The fire cut fierce shadows and gorges on his face, painting thicker strokes on an already disturbing vision.
We hid behind the bushes as Kachamba shrieked and wailed and tried to push back the night until he abruptly stopped and stared at the sky. Another shooting star burned above us. When I looked back, Kachamba had disappeared.
"That's it?" I asked.
Kunga looked at his watch. "Tonight was longer than usual. And not as loud."
"And he does this every night?"
"Almost," Kunga yawned. "Time to go home... See you tomorrow."
A blanket of quiet floated down over the village. Long after I returned home and extinguished my petrol lantern, I lay in my bed staring into darkness. Kachamba danced above me and his screams echoed in my room. I got up and found the bottle of Johnnie Walker.
****
The next day, I walked past the mango tree on my way to the valley. Kachamba sat on his stool, humming while he cleaned a mirror.
He looked up and winked at me. "So when are you going to bring me something to fix?"
I'm not exactly sure how long I stared at him. The difference was, as they say, like night and day.
He tilted his head a little closer. "Monsieur? Do you have something for me?"
"I'll bring you something tomorrow," I said.
"I'll be here."
That night he screamed again, and as he did, I searched my house for something to give to him. I found an old pocketknife I had had since I was 12 years old. The blades were rusted and dull (they could barely cut water) and I never used it but instead carried it with me as a good luck charm. Kachamba screamed one final time, then everything fell quiet.
It was too quiet. I read a book for a while, but when I lay down in bed, the tiredness flew away and I was left yet again staring into the darkness. I got up and finished what was left of my Johnnie Walker. I had another bottle I had brought with me so I cracked that open and drank another glass until I had a dream I was scaling the side of a high cliff. I dug my pocketknife into the sharp rock and used it to pull myself higher. But it was one of those maddening dreams where the higher I climbed, the higher the mountain rose. Then I kept sliding down, catching myself before falling into a deep ravine. I would then dig my knife into the rock again and climb back to the top, only to begin sliding again. Then I would catch myself again, climb again, slide again -- over and over and over...
Like Sissyphus, this went on for an eternity until the sound of roosters filled my room, and light mercifully dripped through the cracks of my shuttered windows. The pocketknife was on the bed stand next to my lantern. I could still feel the pain in my fingers from plunging it into that wall of rock.
All around my house, muted through my mud walls, footsteps and voices greeted the new day. Old women pounded manioc roots in giant mortal and pestles, sending vibrations that shook my closed doors. I had appointments scheduled in the valley that day. I cracked open my window and checked the sky for rain clouds; it was painfully sunny.
Kachamba sat in his usual place.
"You have something for me!" He took my knife and examined it carefully, turning it over and over until he gave me his decision. "Three o'clock. And 200 Francs."
"That sounds fine. Well, have a good day."
"Hold on. Not so fast. I want to show you something...You like boxing, don't you," he said, not as a question, but as a statement of fact.
"Excuse me?"
"You know, fights." His fists jabbed the air a few times.
"I guess. Sure... I do. Actually."
"I thought so," said Kachamba. "I could tell that about you when I first met you. I knew we had something in common. You like Muhammed Ali?"
"Best ever."
"Come inside."
"Oh. I really have to get going. I have meetings in the –"
"Won't take long. Come inside." He pulled his feet out from those little mounds of sand and led me toward his hut. A clean yard, recently swept, surrounded his simple mud home. Inside, sparse furnishings consisted only of two chairs, one small table, a bed, and a black metal trunk. His dirt floor was as spotless as dirt floor could be.
"Sit down." He pulled out a long metal tube out of the trunk and unscrewed the lid, grinning, eying me the whole time, as if setting me up for a big surprise. My neck tensed as I imagined him suddenly pulling out a machete, screaming and hollering as he hacked me to pieces.
At last he unrolled a poster, and a young Muhammed Ali and George Foreman sprang to life in the middle of the room, leaning in and snarling at each other, their gloved hands raised, poised for battle. An outline of the continent of Africa stood in the center, and huge, tricolored letters of orange, yellow, and green splashed along the bottom: "RUMBLE IN THE JUNGLE! ALI V. FOREMAN; KINSHASA, ZAIRE 1974."
"Where did you get that?" I asked.
"At the fight."
"You were at the fight."
He went back to the trunk and took out a small framed picture: it was a scene of a massive crowd of people near the fight ring and in front of them, dressed in a green army uniform, with a scarlet sash belt around his waist, stood a 20-something Kachamba. His back faced the crowd and his arms were spread out wide, holding them at bay. He had hair on his head, and his long, thick sideburns were black.
"Son of a bitch. You were ringside."
He giggled and pulled up a chair next to me "I was hired to keep the crowds from touching the fighters as they entered and exited the ring. I was on Muhammed Ali's corner. I wanted him to win. So did everyone."
"You saw the whole thing?"
"Of course. Ahh, but I saw much more than that..." He closed his eyes and I felt him tumbling backwards through all those years, falling into that photo, bringing alive that frozen moment.
"I spent a solid week without sleep once I knew I was to be working the fight," he said. "I was so excited to know I would be close to the great Ali. The fight was delayed because of something with the TV people, so the crowd was getting impatient and hard to control. But once Ali began his march toward the ring, everyone stood in reverence as this Man-God passed in front of them. We were told that we were not to try and touch the fighters ourselves, and if we did, we would be fired without pay. But the moment I saw him, floating toward me, jabbing the air with his panther's hands, I did not care if they put me in jail. I had to touch him.
"As Ali drew near me, the crowd screaming in my ear, I did it. I reached out and I touched his shoulder. He stopped and turned to me. My mouth went dry as sand, but somehow I managed to speak. I told him I knew that he would win. I thought he was angry . That he was going to hurt me. I thought I was finished. But he smiled at me and said: 'I know that too.' Then he winked at me and climbed into the ring.
"It was the greatest fight ever. When he won, we celebrated as if he had been one of our very own sons. For weeks after there were parties and parades, and dancing and women... Oh! so many women..."
My previously knotted limbs melted into the chair. "That's a great story."
He took the photo from me and wiped off a smudge of dirt. The corners of his eyes crinkled up as he shook his head. "I was so young then. So young... Best time in my life. I knew it even then, while it was happening. You ever felt that way? That the best time of your life is happening to you?"
"I don't know."
"You haven't. You would know. Well, if one day you do, don't ever forget it. Because it will never happen again." He put away the picture, rolled up the poster, and locked the trunk. Kachamba then asked me if I had seen all of Ali's fights. I said I had not seen all of them, but I had seen many of them.
"Tell me," he said.
I'd been a kid (or not even born) when Ali fought most of his big fights, but I remembered some of the details, and what I couldn't remember, I made up. Kachamba listened to me describe Ali-Liston, Ali-Norton I, Ali-Frazier II, his eyes electric and his mouth wide open, as if I were telling him the Twelve Labors of Hercules.
After a couple of hours effortlessly rolled past, Kachamba said he had to get back to work, but that I must come another day when I had time to tell him more about the great Ali.
"When is he going to fight again?" he asked.
"Ali? Never. He is old now. And very sick."
"No," said Kachamba, waving his finger. "That can't be. Whoever that man is, is an impostor. The real Ali, the spirit of Ali can never grow old. If his body fails him, he will find a new one to inhabit."
"Well if that happens," I said. "That will be one lucky and very rich man."
I escorted Kachamba back to his place beneath the mango tree and we said goodbye.
"Three o'clock," he said, referring to my knife, which by then I had forgotten all about.
"Of course," I said. "I'll be here."
****
As promised, at 3:00 that day I returned and Kachamba had my knife ready. The transformation amazed me: clean, spotless, each blade now razor sharp.
Kachamba smiled and winked at me. "Now it will last longer than you will."
I returned the next evening to sit with Kachamba. After another long day hiking forests, stumbling and bumbling my way through my role as wise leader, the idea of a rest stop in the shade of the mango tree kept my legs churning out of the valley. Kachamba didn't stop working when I visited, and instead had an extra stool waiting for me. Talk of the Great Ali soon turned to other subjects: life in America, life in Zaire, women, how exactly a telephone worked, my job, his job. I sat beside him as he fixed everything. A light breeze swirled around me, carrying away sweat and tension from my skin, like dandelion spores bouncing in a puff of wind.
I returned the following day, and each one after that. And though we never spoke about it (I didn't know how to approach the subject) even Kachamba's nighttime screaming took on a relaxing quality, like the oddest of routines eventually do.
One evening many weeks laterI thought of great story that I couldn't wait to tell Kachamba. I finished work and hurried back to the village. But when I arrived at our usual spot, he wasn't there. I called out for him: no answer. I went inside his hut and everything was neat as always-- except his black metal trunk was no longer in the corner.
When I found Kunga, sitting on the ground behind my house, the dejected look on his face confirmed that something was wrong.
"Where is he?" I said.
"The Chief is very upset," he said.
"Kunga – what happened?"
"Someone called for soldiers. They came this morning and took him away. To a hospital."
"A hospital?"
"Well, not really a hospital. Actually it is a jail for crazy people."
"What the fuck -- Why?"
"Someone got tired of him, I guess. His nighttime noise. The Chief is very upset."
That night the Chief called the entire village to his house. He was a stern man in his 50's, with tight gray eyes. He seethed and shouted, kicked sand and waved his walking stick in the air, demanding that whomever did this come forward at once.
No one moved.
The Chief demanded again, and again when no one spoke, he declared that he would put the most powerful curse available to him upon the person who did this. If humans could not carry out justice for this crime, the spirits certainly would.
I couldn't wait for the spirits to act. I asked the Chief permission to travel on his behalf to the "hospital" where Kachamba had been taken and see if I could get him out. He granted it to me, but when I arrived at T''Chunga Hospital, 30 km away, the nurses and doctors had no record of a man named Kachamba being admitted. They said no one new had come in for over a month.
I traveled to other jails and hospitals in the area, with the same scene repeating. I went to the local capital of Kikwit, to speak with the magistrate there, and then I went to the US embassy in Kinshasa. I was gone for over a week. Each place I went to I was greeted with shrugs of indifference. No one had heard of a man called Kachamba. There was no phone system, no mail system, no infrastructure; if a pair of soldiers in a remote part of the country wanted to make someone disappear, they could do so easily.
An empty pit burned wider in my stomach as I arrived back to the village. I told the Chief of my failure, and he said he wasn't surprised. "It often happens that soldiers will say they are taking a person one place, but then take them to another so no one can follow and make trouble."
"You don't think he's been killed do you?" I asked.
"No one would have any reason to do that. He is in some jail somewhere, where he will probably remain for the rest of his life."
I fought the urge to throw up. "And there's nothing we can do?"
He thought long and hard, his gray eyes staring out of his window. "It is beyond all of our grasps. The Chief of a small village wields influence only in his village, and sometimes even that is difficult. The spirits will decide what to do...By the way, on his way out, Kachamba asked the soldiers to let him stop here to say goodbye. He gave me something to give you. "
The Chief whistled, and one of his daughters appeared in the doorway. After giving her a quick command, she briefly went into the adjoining room and returned with the metal tube from Kachamba's trunk. My hands quivered as I unscrewed the lid; I knew what lay inside.
The next night, Lumba, a cattle farmer who lived at the edge of the village suddenly came down with a powerful fever. He died within 24 hours. The people of Kitengo concluded that it must have been him that turned in Kachamba, and that the spirits had slayed him. The Chief forced his family to leave, and ordered his body dumped in a shallow, unmarked grave unaccompanied by any ceremony. For the people of Kitengo, the story of Kachamba was over. Justice had been done.
****
For myself however, the story of Kachamba was far from over. I lived in Kitengo for a year after he vanished. Each day under the bright sun, I labored hard with my group of farmers. After an enormous amount of bug-infested, backbreaking work, we built a successful fish farm: a network of five ponds that raised Tilapia. I enjoyed myself, and made many friends. But each evening when I walked passed the mango tree -- the patch of sand where he buried his feet lying undisturbed, and the cool swirl of the evening winds stripped silent of all conversation – my stomach churned and a gnawing heat rose in my throat.
And each night, in the unnerving quiet of my hut, I spent longer and longer hours staring sleeplessly into the darkness of my room.
I eventually left The Congo and returned home to America. I got a new job, met new people, created a new life. Daylight hours were fine. But then one night, a night that began like a thousand others, I was home by myself, long past midnight; I had finished one bottle of wine, and was ready to open another. I stood in my kitchen, steadying myself against the counter top as I fumbled to pull the corkscrew out of my pocketknife.
"Now it will last longer than you will."
I ripped open the bottle, poured a huge glass, stumbled through my apartment, and collapsed down in my sofa. The poster from the fight, now framed, rose on the wall above me. And in the cool quiet of my house (beneath the quiet, within the quiet) I heard whispering.
It used to happen only occasionally. Now it happened every night. Every night, I heard the whispering. Voices whispered and swirled around me. They whispered at me, and whispered about me. I wanted to tell them to stop. I wanted so badly to shout at them to STOP! And with a trembling hand I brought the glass of wine to my lips and knew then at that moment why I had felt so close to Kachamba. I was surprised it had taken me so long.
My screams were silent screams. I did not dance around a fire. I had no wife who had left me. I didn't even know the source of my screams, but they were there just the same, and each year they grew louder, louder and stronger. I could feel them growing stronger, rising in my throat; and I had to stop them, I couldn't let them out, for if it happened once, if I screamed just once, I knew I would scream forever. So I pushed them back down with more and more effort, pouring bottles down my throat with more and more frequency in a mad, desperate, blinding effort to please-just-please drown them out...
It was exhausting work, but it was necessary. And soon I became quite good at it. Soon I was even able to drown out the entire night.